(edit) .

Right. Here are some facts.

The CIA isn't spying on most of us through our TVs right now, though they do have the technology to do it and have developed it specifically for that purpose.

So have countless other entities (government and independent. You can download the tech yourself if you care to, or have the technical ability).

Samsung is spying on you through your Samsung TV's
(http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/fine-print-on-one-of-samsungs-tvs-says-its-recording-your-voice/)

Any consumer products with voice recognition could be considered to be spying on you, such as Google and Amazon "home assistants".

Technically, by now anything with an active microphone has the capability to do this. It should probably be considered worse that it's not the government, but completely unknown third-parties who supply the infrastructure to do this on a massive scale for the purposes of data mining for advertising.

I have personal experience with this technology and the industries that develop and distribute it. This isn't hearsay or conjecture. I will never understand why it's acceptable for unchecked third-party corporations to spy on you, but once the government does it, a slightly larger minority gets upset.

I don't think people generally find it okay to be spied on by anyone. But if i had to choose...

For me personally i fear the government would gather/use particular types of info to possibly fuck my life up in one of many ways, and for one of many reasons. Google on the other hand may be interested to gather info to try and sell me some shit. I don't want either to get up in my business, but it's a no brainier which i fear more.

I've known to many people getting screwed by government agency, not so many by Amazon

He's only telling half the story.

Yes, American agencies won't spy on Americans without a warrant, BUT, all Western intelligence agencies have a nudge-nudge wink-wink relationship. "We won't spy on OUR citizens, so we'll just spy on yours, you spy on ours and we'll share intel at the end of the day."

It amounts to the same thing, just with a clever workaround to pretend to the public like you're not actually spying on them.